Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura on Friday became the first Cabinet member to openly acknowledge that Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's visits to Yasukuni Shrine are impeding top-level visits between Japan and China.
"It is very clear that the largest reason reciprocal visits have not taken place is the issue of the Yasukuni visits," Machimura said in a session of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, admitting that Koizumi's repeated trips to the Shinto shrine, which honors Class-A war criminals as well as Japan's war dead, were an obstacle to summits.
There has not been an exchange of top-level visits between the two countries in more than three years, apparently due to Beijing's anger over the shrine visits.